Lever Touch places its bets on the US

One of Lever Touch goals is to be a global scale reference in automotive repairs, specially when there are hail damages involved. We want to provide a service of the highest quality to factories, insurance companies, fleets, and bodyshops, covering the largest possible geographical extension.

This philosophy has encouraged us to open an American branch, located in Miami, and registered in Delaware. We already have the Certificate of Incorporation and we are taking the last steps necessary for our office to be fully operational in 2018.

Besides the company’s commitment to expansion and the desire to provide a better service to our clientes, who are distributed all over the world, there are strictly objective motives that made it advisable to take our activity to the United States territory. Among these motives, we could highlight the high number of meteorological catastrophes shown in the current statistics.

Hail Damages in the US

The data published by the NOAA National Weather Service show that, during 2016, 5,601 severe hail storms hit the country. May was the month with more reports (1,511), followed by July and June. And this is not an exceptional statistical situation, it just confirms the tendencies of previous seasons.

Every year, spring and summer come together with hail forecasts that result in a high number of catastrophes, causing damages and loses that reach astronomical figures. Every year, thousands of cars are seriously dented by the hail that fells on American soil, and their owners have to deal with the costs of repairing them.

A study by the HLDI shows compelling information about the claims presented by car owners in the period 2008-2016 because of hail damages. The numbers make reference to the claims that occur over 1,000 insured vehicles, and they are extremely high in certain states. The following table shows the ten states where those claims were more common during the aforementioned period:

Estados con mayor frecuencia de reclamaciones por granizo [2008-2016]
1 South Dakota 26,5
2 Nebraska 19,1
3 Oklahoma 18,4
4 Kansas 16,5
5 Wyoming 15,2
6 Montana 11,8
7 Colorado 10,0
8 Missouri 09,3
9 Iowa 07,6
10 Texas 06,7

If we check the general information about hail claims in the three-year period 2013-2015, we will notice the surprising figures in Texas, with a 19% of the total. It turns out that clearly the Midwest and the Great Plains suffer the effects of hail very frequently. There is also an evident pattern in the seasons of the year: most of the claims are filed during spring and the beginnings of summer, from March to June:

Monthly claims for hail damages [2013 – 2015]
Month / Year 2013 2014 2015 Monthly Average
January 5.826 4.235 2.720 4.260
February 33.737 8.780 2.890 15.136
March 121.916 33.966 27.334 61.072
April 140.984 141.661 164.476 149.040
May 149.528 250.561 95.171 165.087
June 76.799 190.225 120.232 129.085
July 53.983 68.045 44.922 55.650
August 90.129 27.191 48.615 55.312
September 23.658 54.892 24.970 34.507
October 12.569 36.479 28.160 25.736
November 8.622 3.991 8.437 7.017
December 2.722 4.299 4.255 3.759

The owners of cars damaged by these phenomena can find themselves having to afford repair prices like the ones in the following table, depending on the size of the dents and the number of impacts the car has suffered:

Dent repair cost in vehicles (in $)
# / Size dents 10 cents coin 5 cents coin Quarter coin 50 cents coin
01 – 05 (hood) 150 175 200 225
06 – 15 (hood) 200 225 250 300
16 – 30 (hood) 250 275 300 375
01 – 05 (roof) 300 325 350 400
06 – 15 (roof) 375 400 425 450
16 – 30 (roof) 450 475 525 575
01 – 05 (trunk) 125 125 150 175
06 – 15 (trunk) 150 175 225 250
16 – 30 (trunk) 200 225 275 300

All this information, combined with the fact that in the U.S. there are more than 300 million vehicles in use -more than anywhere else in the world-, and that large areas in its territory are frequently affected by severe hail storms, complete the picture.

The specialization on Paintless Dent Repair techniques of the Lever Touch workers gives them the ability to bring each car back to its original state, with the greatest efficiency and the best results. The company, which already has branches in Germany, Spain, France, and Argentina, and its headquarters in Italy, is taking now the next step, coming to the United States, to offer its services and repair cars damaged by meteorological catastrophes, and to expand its professional activity, based on the highest quality standards and strict practices.

Our office in Miami will be fully operational starting next year (2018) and will offer the same philosophy and rigorous control that made us grow an increase the quality of our work since 1998.